Plasma physics

Stewart Prager was the sixth director of PPPL. He joined the Laboratory in 2009 after a long career at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. At Wisconsin, he led research on the “Madison Symmetric Torus” (MST) experiment and headed a center that studied plasmas in both the laboratory and the cosmos. He also co-discovered the “bootstrap current” there—a key finding that has influenced the design of today’s tokamaks. He earned his PhD in plasma physics from Columbia University.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science, the largest U.S. supporter of basic research in the physical sciences, celebrated the 40th anniversary of its founding in 2017. To mark the 40th anniversary of Office of Science support for the country’s national laboratories and basic research at universities and private industry, the DOE has compiled 40 milestone papers that represent what the Department calls “a cream-of-the crop selection that has changed the face of science.”

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science, the largest U.S. supporter of basic research in the physical sciences, celebrated the 40th anniversary of its founding in 2017. To mark the 40th anniversary of Office of Science support for the country’s national laboratories and basic research at universities and private industry, the DOE has compiled 40 milestone papers that represent what the Department calls “a cream-of-the crop selection that has changed the face of science.”

Clayton Myers, a 2015 graduate of the Program in Plasma Physics in the Princeton Department of Astrophysical Sciences who did his research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has won the 2018 Dissertation Prize awarded by the Laboratory Astrophysics Division (LAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Myers, now a physicist at Sandia National Laboratory, received the award for his work on the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX) at PPPL.

Clayton Myers, a 2015 graduate of the Program in Plasma Physics in the Princeton Department of Astrophysical Sciences who did his research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has won the 2018 Dissertation Prize awarded by the Laboratory Astrophysics Division (LAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Myers, now a physicist at Sandia National Laboratory, received the award for his work on the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX) at PPPL.

A key goal for ITER, the international fusion device under construction in France, will be to produce 10 times more power than goes into it to heat the hot, charged plasma that sustains fusion reactions. Among the steps needed to reach that goal will be controlling instabilities called “neoclassical tearing modes” that can cause magnetic islands to grow in the plasma and shut down those reactions.

A key goal for ITER, the international fusion device under construction in France, will be to produce 10 times more power than goes into it to heat the hot, charged plasma that sustains fusion reactions. Among the steps needed to reach that goal will be controlling instabilities called “neoclassical tearing modes” that can cause magnetic islands to grow in the plasma and shut down those reactions.

You may be most familiar with the element lithium as an integral component of your smart phone’s battery, but the element also plays a role in the development of clean fusion energy. When used on tungsten surfaces in fusion devices, lithium can reduce periodic instabilities in plasma that can damage the reactor walls, scientists have found.

You may be most familiar with the element lithium as an integral component of your smart phone’s battery, but the element also plays a role in the development of clean fusion energy. When used on tungsten surfaces in fusion devices, lithium can reduce periodic instabilities in plasma that can damage the reactor walls, scientists have found.

Elena Belova, a principal research physicist in the Theory Department at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has been named to the editorial board of the Physics of Plasmas, a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Institute of Physics. Duties of board members, selected for their high degree of technical expertise, range from suggesting topics for special sections to adjudicating impasses between authors and referees that arise over manuscripts.